Heretic: A Memoir

Books

A memoir of leaving the evangelical Church and the search for radical new ways to build community, reckoning with religious trauma and Midwestern values as a means to unveil how evangelicalism directly impacts every American--religious or not--and has been a major force in driving our democracy towards fascism. Jeanna Kadlec knew what it meant to be faithful--in her marriage to a paster's son, in the comfortable life ahead of her, in her God--but there was no denying the truth that lived under that conviction: she was queer and, if she wanted to survive, she would need to leave behind the church and every foundational building block she knew. Heretic is a memoir of heretical rebirth. From the story of Lilith to celebrity purity rings, a newly married Kadlec interrogates how her indoctrination and years of piety intersects with her Midwest working-class upbringing as she navigates graduate school in Boston, revealing another insidious truth--that conservative Christianity has both built and undermined our ...